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On that thought... I wonder how many people have been hurt by SLO's in my hometown alone (not a poll, just rhetorical). I mean, after the whole "ninja craze" of the late 80's and 90's in the USA, what ever happened to the good old aluminum/stainless steel craptacular swords?

That wak looks a lot like an unsharpened SLO katana I bought a few years ago when I didn't know any better, with the exception that it does actually have a normal tang (non-rat tail). First day of swinging it around, the handle (I've forgotten the correct term, forgive me) cracked on one side. I pretty much discarded it after that.

I had fun disassembling a wall hanger the other day. Me and my cousin have been trying to take this one apart for weeks. I accidently dropped it on the ground and the end cap fell off. The cap was to make it look like it had a peened tang. Well under the tang was a nut and a thread. I busted apart the plastic hilt and and it fell apart revealing a skinny little tang. The hilt before had to metal pecies on the sides trying to make it look like a full tang. Well those were just cast metal peices and they just dropped off.
I screwed off the pommel and broke the welded tang off with my hands. Off came came the guard and I'm stuck with a blade and not even an inch of normal tang....
Another similar expeirance was that I had a scabbard made of plastic and cast metal for one of my swords(or sword like object). I just dropped it on the floor and it exploded. Luckily I wasn't bear footed.
How much more work would it be to just add a normal tang? There getting lazyier and lazier. Darn kids these days.

I have a cheapo wallhanger gunto-wannabe that a student gave me about 3 years ago....been wanting to give it away to any other student, but since I forgot who exactly gave it to me, I think I'll risk keeping it instead of giving away to the person who gave it to me in the first place...

Check out the ito job in this gunto wannabe....are those NAILS holding the fake-o Ito in place??? (sorry about the poor quality pic, but I just had to snap this so ya'll could have another (educational) giggle....

Attached Images

Restita DeJesus

"The expectations of life depend upon diligence;
The mechanic that would perfect his work, must first sharpen his tools."
- Confucius

humm, my "wall hangers" are shaped pretty well, the nakago is in the right shape, and the hamon is pretty nice looking too. The arrangement of koshirae is right. I only bought them only for like 4000 to 6000 yen: Look really good in my living room. They look really different from those pics shown above...

Originally posted by Restita DeJesus are those NAILS holding the fake-o Ito in place??? (sorry about the poor quality pic, but I just had to snap this so ya'll could have another (educational) giggle....

That's pretty funny. I should make some SLO's outta my leftover household tacks, chicken wire, stakes, and I'll wrap the Tsuka in band-aids.

Cripes!

Now I'm glad that I never really decided to *do* anything with my wallhanger. It's got to have that same plastic molded handle since I can't find any peg holes in the handle. It's got this wax plug near the koiguchi so the blade has all these waxy spots on it.

So I replaced it with a decent length iaito, only to learn that synthetic leather tsuka-ito does not last as long as people claim. So as soon as my tsuka returns re-wrapped, I'll be back in business.

In the interest of education, I'm going to get some pictures of my iaito taken apart and some before and after shots of the tsuka-ito put up here.

Kachi wa saya no naka ni ari

"Speak from the heart but carry a shinken, just in case." - modified Teddy Roosevelt

I owned afew of SLO a few years ago and all had rat tail tangs apart from one which was called 'the full tang katana' but still it was made of stainless. However I recently bought one of though ebay fakes just to see and to be honest I'd rather have the ebay fake as a wall hanger than the stainless ones, I'll try and get some pics of it with the handle removered (the fittings are poor as poor can be but at least there wood!! )

To over look the Basics, is to over look the art!

The Basics are the art, so the basics are the most important aspect of the art, any thing else is just advancing from the basics, if you don't train the basics you won't get the advantage of the style

I recently saw something what's supposed to be one of those "better quality wallhangers" in a store. Carbon steel and relatively sharpened even. While I was looking through them ($160-220 CAD range) I noticed one "on special" for $89.99.

I touched the handle and I could feel that it was broken about 3" in (isn't it about the same lengh as the tang shown on the pictures?) and only wrappings held it in place. The salesman didn't make any bones about those swords: they are decorative only but I wonder how many of those are out there sold as the real deal...

Edited to add:
The "mekugi" actually seems like not such bad engineering in this case: so called "spirol pins" have excellent shear properties (it looks like one) and compensate for any slack the hole might have.

Thanks for the pics of the plastic-handle wakizashi! Is that a United Cutlery product? I have one just like it -UC1283- except it is a katana. I could tell just by holding it that the tang was only half way through the handle. But as short as it is, the tang looks pretty sturdy!